


Bad State of Mind

by LadyKatAstrid



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Slow Burn, Violence, don't expect them together for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:56:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKatAstrid/pseuds/LadyKatAstrid
Summary: A massacre. A mystery. A woman on a mission. A whole load of bad choices.
Relationships: Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There will be trigger warnings for each chapter on the notes. 
> 
> **TW: blood, violence, light gore**

Fascinating.

The only word that crossed Elsa’s mind while she watched the blood drip from her hands was fascinating.

The red liquid was still warm between her fingers, a viscous and sticky substance that coloured the lines and wrinkles of her hands of red.

It’s nothing like wine, she thought as another drop met the puddle under her feet. All her life, she had heard it being compared to the burgundy drink, but the two liquids shared only the colour.

The pungent smell of metal filled her lungs and her every cell as the chains around her neck and hands prevented her from taking her hands to her mouth. She cupped them as another bucket was thrown over her, and more of that slimy liquid fell over her.

“As you were before,” said a voice above her. “Now you are born anew. As you weren’t before, now you are a perfect creature.”

But she hadn’t asked for anything like this. She couldn’t feel her legs, hours of kneeling had bereft her of sensation in her lower limbs, but still, the chains around her ankles tied her to the stone floor.

She looked at her hands, once pale and delicate now reddened and bruised. Hands that all had ever done was hold a quill and now carried the burden of death.

“What is your offence? Who will be your saviour?” The voice from before asked again.

“Murder. He.” She answered.

Another bucket over her head pushed her tendrils of her over her eyes. The blood had long assimilated into her previously platinum blonde locks. Even her eyes had taken the colour of the blood.

Nothing of her past self remained untouched.

***

_Some… time later_

There wasn’t any blood. No, she had become far more refined to let the precious gold escape a body without any control. A fine crack sound, and she had all the time she wanted to savour the droplets that gave her life.

“Do so,” the voice commanded.

She couldn’t even hear the pleas of the person under her hands, the sobs and whimpers as she tightened her hold, one hand on their chin and the other in the back of their head.

A sharp sound.

The person under her hands fell limp, only her two hands holding them.

“Good, my pet. What do we say now?”

“Thank you, Master,” she replied.

She was allowed to drink.

***

There was a knock on her door, and Elsa lowered the book she had been reading.

“Yes?” She asked, beckoning them forward.

The door opened, and an old man stepped into her study. He was carrying a tray with a letter on it, and he bowed as he offered it to her.

“She has written again, my lady.”

“Thank you, Kai,” she nodded at him and he took his leave.

_“You will never have any kind of human connections again.”_

His words rang in her head as she opened the envelope and took out the letter inside. She shook her head to clear her mind, and after blinking rapidly, she scanned the text inside.

_Dear benefactor,_  
_I write to you once more to offer my gratitude upon your continued generosity…_

Her eyes flew through the text, barely paying attention to the words, and after seeing the signature, her eyes turned towards the date. Almost three days ago.

She sighed, her shoulders slouching at the knowledge she was still alive. In times like these, it wasn’t something everyone could say.

She got up and crossed the room to the painting that lay in between two floor to ceiling bookshelves, but her eyes never stopped to look at the happy family, but instead, she moved the painting aside and pushed a cleverly hidden button.

On the other side of the room she heard a click, barely inaudible, and, once again, she crossed the room to hide the letter in the safe that had opened up, leaving it with the rest of them.

The clock signalled the twelve hour and Elsa sighed once again, knowing she had no more time to continue reading. She prided herself on her punctuality and expected the rest to follow suit, and her meetings with her security detail were at twelve.

Heading for her desk, she had just sat down when a rapid knock sounded at the door, but instead of waiting for permission, the door opened.

Her parents must’ve had a heart-attack if they’d known, and if they’d been alive, who her daughter had employed as her security expert because she surely didn’t look like one.

Tight-fitting jeans and a light brown shirt were not at all the standards Elsa had first hoped for, but she did wear a black blazer per her request. Her hair, instead of flowing freely behind her, was tied up in a loose braid with a yellow hair tie.

The woman sat down in a chair opposite of her, and to an untrained eye, they could look like they were of similar age.

“Ms Matthews, thank you for coming,” Elsa started.

“Oh, please, Elsa, how many times have I told you we are past formalities? It’s Melisa.”

“I like to keep formalities, Ms Matthews,” _you’ll always be alone._ “As you will refer to me as Ms Dell.”

Elsa shot her a sharp look and the other woman cleared her throat, conceding, but her expression held no remorse.

“Of course, Ms Dell. You required my presence?”

“I need a full report on the security.”

Melisa nodded. “Perimeter is secured, and the detail around that woman has checked in as usual. She’s currently heading to the university, if I’m correct, and I usually am.” Those last words were said under her breath, but Elsa’s acute hearing caught them easily.

She ignored them and continued. “And the rat problem?”

At that, the other woman smirked dangerously. “It will be taken care of tonight, and I’ll personally oversee the transportation.”

“Do I need to be on standby in case you need backup?”

Melisa scoffed. “And let you do all the fun work? You hired me and my team for a reason, ma’am, and you should not get your pretty hands dirty.”

Her words tugged at a painful memory, and Elsa had to close her hands into fists not to react in a stronger way.

“Of course,” she said in a tight voice. “Then, if there’s nothing else,” she looked at the door behind the woman.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The brunette headed for the door, but before closing it behind her, she popped her head back in.

“Should I bring a rat? You know, for eh… Rat control?” She finished awkwardly.

That made Elsa almost smirk. “That won’t be necessary, Miss Matthews. This is about sending a message, not about gathering intel.”

“Noted. See you tomorrow, Ms Dell.”

***  
It was dark and one hour before they would act when Melisa parked her van in front of the supposedly empty warehouse. Her phone dinged and she checked the message from her team: they were in position.

Her other phone vibrated on her blazer’s chest pocket, and she took the call.

“Are you watching her?” She asked instead of a greeting.

“ _I have your boss on my sights, yes,_ ” the male voice replied.

“She’s your boss too,” Melisa countered with an eye roll.

“ _You’re the one giving me the pay checks, so we agree to disagree._ ”

The woman grinned. “Stop being such a little shit, Ryder.”

“ _Start giving me a bonus for that, Honeymaren,_ ” Ryder countered.

At that, Honeymaren chuckled. “Oh, the joys of having a little brother. Could you take the shot?”

“ _Just waiting on your call, boss._ ”

There was a pause while Honeymaren thought about it. “No, not yet. I want to see how tonight goes, and then I’ll decide. She hasn’t lost it yet.”

“ _Nope. I suppose a little visit to that protégée of hers will do._ ”

“I don’t want to push her over the edge, at least not yet.”

“ _She’s getting close to the mark,_ ” Ryder mentioned.

“But she hasn’t shown any indicative, Ry,” she reminded him.

“ _They’re all monsters, Maren._ ”

“And you could say the same about us,” Honeymaren’s brow furrowed, getting frustrated at her brother.

She could hear him sigh over the line. “ _I’m sorry, you’re right. I won’t make any moves unless you tell me to._ ”

“Good. Let’s handle the traitors first and then I’ll treat you to some breakfast.”

“ _With bacon?_ ” He perked up.

“And good coffee. Spirits know I need some.”

“ _Alright, I’ll hold you onto that. See you later._ ”

Her brother hung up, not waiting for her reply, and she knew all his focus would be to keep Elsa in his scope until he received her call.

Time passed by until her phone buzzed twice, indicating it was go time. One text and the rest of her team spread to cover all ground. Broch went up, Hua went low, and Fitz was already in the building, counting the number of people inside.

Ten buzzes meant ten people. A pause and the important number. Three. Honeymaren smirked, this was going to be easy.

She opened the door to the warehouse without trying to mask her entrance, furthermore, she slammed it close to notify of her arrival.

She walked to the little gathering with eyes on her, but she made no move of recognition of that fact.

She smiled at the people looking and pointing guns at her, but she paid them no heed. Her eyes were set on the person hiding behind the mass of bodies, and her smile grew when their eyes shone with fear.

Honeymaren put her hands up. “There, there. No need to get violent. I’m unarmed, see?” She slowly made a turn, showing them she carried no weapons.

The guns didn’t lower, and the people holding them tightened their grip when she walked closer.

“Who are you?” The leader looking person asked her.

“Why don’t you ask that little one behind you?” She waved at Elsa’s former employee.

The bold man looked behind him, but never took his gun off Honeymaren.

“She- she’s Ms Dell’s head of security,” he told the leader.

“And I want in,” Honeymaren rapidly announced before anyone could show any initiative.

The bald man laughed, returning his eyes to her. “And why would you do that?”

“Because what Marcel over here hasn’t told you, the security around the blood bank has a random variable added to it, and those plans are useless to you now.”

His head spun so fast to look at Marcel, that Honeymaren feared her work there was done.

“You’re trying to sell me useless information?!” He yelled, switching his gun and pointing it at him.

Marcel whimpered and sniffled trying to form an answer, but before he could give one, the man’s hand swept and hit the side of his head, knocking him cold on the floor.

The bald man rubbed his head, mumbling to himself and walking from one side to the other.

Honeymaren, who still had the rest of the guns pointed at her, cleared her throat. Instantly, he snapped and pointed the gun at her.

“If I may be of service?”

He furrowed his brows. “What are your terms? Your boss’ death? His cut?” He motioned to the guy on the floor.

Honeymaren waved his words off. “No, all that I can get on my own. I want those plans back, and then I want you and your men dead.”

He laughed, and the rest followed suit.

“Silly girl, you’re surrounded by ten men and three shadows, not to mention the ones waiting outside. How could you ever possibly think you’d get out of here alive after what you just said?”

She tilted her head, a thinking expression on her face. “Men outside? Are you sure about that?” She asked.

The bald man hesitated for a second, and then called over his goons over his radio, receiving only silence.

His hands trembled as he strode towards Honeymaren and put his gun on her head.

“What the fuck do you want?!”

Honeymaren flinched when his spit touched her face, and closed her eyes just in case. Not caring about the gun, she wiped it off.

“I already told you what I want, and now you’ve pissed me off.”

Without a warning, she ducked under his arm, taking it over her shoulder and with a push, slung her over her body and used it as a shield when the rest of his men started shooting.

She walked backwards while firing from his gun and took cover behind a pillar.

“A little help would be appreciated!” She yelled to the rest of her group.

An arrow flew past her, embedding itself on the cement above her head. Stuck to it, there was a note with a happy face and a knife on a sheath.

Grumbling her thanks to Broch, Honeymaren turned to face the firing behind her, but no sooner had she turned the pillar when a rock-hard fist slammed itself against her stomach, sending her flying back.

Fortunately, she did not lose her hold onto the knife, and she got on her knees with some trouble. Wiping the blood off her mouth, she looked up. There were two humanoids, a man and a woman, standing a few meters away.

Honeymaren coughed some more and then stood up. “I was wondering when you’d show your faces, vamps.”

They hissed at her and lowered their positions, ready to launch themselves forward. Honeymaren readied her stance, the knife in front of her and her other hand at her back, taking something from her back pocket.

They attacked in unison, but Honeymaren centred her focus on the one to her right. It seemed the three vampires in attendance were a pack with the one not present being the head of the pack, and had sent these two to face her.

She stabbed the closest body part to her and twisted the knife until the creature screamed and backhanded Honeymaren, who fell to the floor once more.

But the damage was done, and the vampire was screeching on the floor, unable to take it out due to it being plated with silver.

Now that there was only one of them, Honeymaren focused on dodging its swipes and punches, waiting for her opportunity.

It arrived when the vampire overextended her reach; Honeymaren sidestepped it with a twirl, and just when she was at its back, rose her fist and flung the pin with a flick of her thumb. Her extending staff then shot free of its cage, one of the ends impaling on the vampire’s neck, piercing through the other side and splashing the floor with its darkened blood.

She yanked it free and the lifeless body fell to the ground with a dull sound. Moving her eyes to the other vampire, she saw that it was now clawing at its own neck, the poisonous silver flowing through its veins as fast as the water down a slope.

She walked towards it with disgust on her face, taking out the knife on its leg. With one hand grabbing its hair, she slowly dragged the knife over its neck, maintaining eye contact all the while. The knife made a squishy sound when it first entered its body, but it was sharp enough for Honeymaren to make a straight line.

Its red eyes slowly lost focus as the blood covered Honeymaren’s hand and dripped onto the floor.

She let the head clunk against the concrete and turned around to face the rest of the warehouse.

There were only four people left, and one of them was held in a chokehold by a pissed off woman with ebony hair.

“Dear Marcel, have you learned why you should not betray Ms Dell?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“Y- yes, yes! I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, Ms Matthews, I am so sorry.” 

He was crying into Hua’s hold, who rolled her eyes.

“Good, that’s good.” Honeymaren smiled. “Unfortunately for you, Ms Dell said to make an example out of you, so you won’t be going home to your family tonight.”

“Please! No, no, please I have a family!”

“And you should’ve thought so before trying to sell Ms Dell’s plans to her enemies. No one likes a rat in their family.”

“She can’t win! Whatever you’re trying to do it won’t work! She’ll lose it and all of you will be dead! I’m doing this for her house!”

Honeymaren put her face close to his, and sweat the hair out of his eyes.

“Rest assured, that your last moments on this earth will be with the knowledge that if anyone is to kill Ms Dell, I have been assigned that role for over sixty years.”

“But you… you can’t be older than twenty-seven, I- How?”

She stood straight. “That is not for you to know. But thank you for the compliment. Now, I have places to be, so Hua, if you wouldn’t mind...”

“No, wait-”

But his last words died as Hua snapped his neck.

The only man in their team stepped up. “Need us to clean up, boss?”

Honeymaren looked around the place, noting the bodies splattered around the place, some with cuts, some with bullets, and some with arrows in their bodies.

“No, that won’t be necessary, just burn the plans and make sure we don’t leave anything incriminating behind. You know what to do.”

They nodded and split, making sure to leave no clues behind, and Honeymaren took her phone and called the number entered by memory.

“ _Is it done?_ ” Elsa’s smooth voice asked over the line.

“No one left behind, as you requested.”

“ _Good. Casualties? _”__

__“None.”_ _

__“ _I expect your full report tomorrow, Ms Matthews._ ”_ _

__Honeymaren hung up and instantly dialled her brother._ _

__“How is she?” She asked._ _

__“ _Pacing around her room, looking worried, but she hasn’t done anything else yet._ ”_ _

__“Her eyes?”_ _

__“ _They were a reddish colour before you called, but now they seem as two orbs of dancing sky, infinite hues shining as the droplets of water over forget-me-nots first thing in the morning._ ”_ _

__Honeymaren snorted. “Please stop reading trashy novels, I’m begging.”_ _

__“ _Then beg_ ,” he chuckled. “ _She doesn’t look like she’s gonna do anything rash, do you still want me to pull the trigger?_ ”_ _

__“No, we still have time, she’ll answer for her misdeeds soon enough. Keep an eye on her, but no need to be alert.”_ _

__“ _Copy that boss. See you soon._ ”_ _

__“Bye.”_ _

__Elsa Dell, the only known survivor of the Dell massacre, would not roam free the earth for much longer, be it for the need of blood or because she perished by her hand._ _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings for this one

The room was the same as the last time Honeymaren had entered; the books were in place and not a speck of dust on them, the white marble was spotless, and the black soft carpet resting underneath Elsa’s desk looked as new as the rest of furniture.

She scanned her eyes around the room, trying to locate the safe where her boss kept her most private of information; she knew there was a safe behind the only painting in the room, but she also knew that one was only bait if anyone were to rob her; most people wouldn’t stop to find another one if they believed they had already found the safe.

But Honeymaren was not most people, and although Elsa had told her that was her safe, her eyes and voice hadn’t had that inflection in them, and that told Honeymaren there was a second safe in the room. Revealing where one kept their most precious items was often accompanied by hesitation in the voice, hardness in it perhaps, but she had been as unemotional as always.

“Morning, Ms Dell,” she said after crossing the threshold.

Elsa looked up from the documents she had been looking at, appraising Honeymaren with a look of indifference.

“Good morning, Ms Matthews,” she replied.

Honeymaren took a seat in front of her, but not the one she had taken the other day. She almost couldn’t keep her smirk from showing on her face when she saw Elsa’s eyebrow do a quick twitch.

“Do you have yesterday’s report?” Elsa left the documents neatly piled to the side and crossed her fingers, putting her attention on Honeymaren.

Honeymaren offered her the manila folder she had been carrying. The names and inculpatory information were written in code, and everything could be read simply as if Honeymaren’s security team had overseen a business transaction.

Elsa took it and read the pages in silence while Honeymaren relaxed into her seat.

“There were three watermelons? You didn’t write if you had problems handling them.”

“That’s because they weren’t a problem, two of them were… unripe and I had no problems checking them, and my team handled the other one without me even noticing.”

“And everyone there was paid?”

“Yes, we paid them, Hua made sure to tip the ones on the outside, and then she came to help with the ones inside. Everyone left the premises without complaints.”

“Thank you for handling it. About the rest?”

“Team B didn’t check in, but that’s because they don’t have to until tomorrow, and my team and I will take two days off when they do.”

“Who will be replacing you?”

Honeymaren scoffed. “No one can, but Cass is almost as capable of managing the place as I am, so you’ll be safe.”

Elsa looked away. “Not me who I’m worried about. If there’s nothing else, that will be all Ms Matthews, have some nice days off.”

Elsa took the folder and put it away in one of her drawers, picking up the documents she had left on the side and centring her attention on them.

That was as much a dismissal as Honeymaren needed, so she exited the office to walk around the mansion.

It had three floors, with the second one used for offices and the last one held Elsa’s personal quarters. The first floor had the kitchen, living room, dining room, and rooms for the staff, and the basement had the security detail’s lockers and beds, and it was also used as their reconvene point.

That’s where Honeymaren headed after her talk with Elsa. She greeted the staff she met along the way and closed the door after her; as it could only be accessed with a key, only her team or Elsa could get into the room.

She found Fitz on the cameras with his feet up the console and his hands behind his head, although fortunately, he was not sleeping. Broch, on the other hand, was snoring next to Ryder, and Hua was looking at the cork where their timetables and necessary information was laid up.

“Are the mics working?” She asked Fitz.

He fumbled to sit properly and typed some to pull up another window in the screens.

“Everything’s working correctly, but they’re not picking up anything but the staff’s chatter.”

Honeymaren frowned. “Not even the new one I put right on her office?”

He selected something, and they saw the microphone on Elsa’s office working live. There wasn’t even a murmur, only the scraping of the chair on the floor when she got up, but even her footsteps were silent.

“Damn,” Fitz said. “Why’s her type always have to be so quiet? One might think she’s dead.”

Both chuckled or at least grinned at his comment.

“We’ll just need to wait until next week, when she receives another letter, and try to deduce where she hides them.”

Hua walked up to them silently. “You’re not gonna use Cass’ grumpy attitude to get her talking?”

“And get us all fired?” Grinned Honeymaren.

“Hey!” Fitz pipped up. “Don’t talk like that about my girlfriend’s girlfriend. She’s not that bad deep down.” A pause. “But like, you have to search very, very, very deep, I haven’t found that side yet.”

“Alright, alright” conceded Honeymaren, crossing her arms. “No, she’ll keep everyone away from her, even the staff, and let’s see how that goes. We’ll make her nervous and make her leave the study to find her meal.”

“Destabilize the objective?” Asked Hua walking to them.

Honeymaren nodded. “Get her out of her routine, force her to change it; do that every week and she won’t pay that much attention to her surroundings because she’ll be expecting the interruption. That’s when we get into her office.”

“Coolio.” Nodded Fitz. “We’re just pissing off a more than a hundred years old vampire close to the breaking point by stealing a couple of documents. Will it be worth it?”

Hua rolled her eyes. “You’ll have your island surrounded by money, thief boy. And if we can prove she was the one to massacre the village up north, we’ll have all the jurisdiction we need to finish her off, with her riches going over to us on the NSC.”

He put his hands up. “Okay, okay, it’s worth it. I just hope we don’t die along the way.”

“Isn’t that our everyday mantra?” Honeymaren wondered out loud. “I have all your timetables on the board and we have a couple of days off, except for Broch, I hope you enjoy them.”

***

“So this is what we’re doing on our day off? Walking around a park?” Ryder complained while eating sunflower seeds.

The park they were at was almost on the outskirts of the city, and an hour car ride away from Honeymaren and Ryder’s house. She had woken him up early to get there by mid-morning, and while he was eating his breakfast, Honeymaren was nursing a sugared black coffee.

“Did you have better plans?”

“Sleep. My plans were to sleep.” He deadpanned.

“If you hadn’t been up talking to a certain someone, you wouldn’t be as tired as you are today,” she mentioned.

Ryder flushed. “You could hear me?”

“Not the specifics, and I don’t wanna know what my little brother does with his partner at night.”

He flushed even redder. “Nothing of the sorts! We were just talking!”

Honeymaren smirked. “If you say so. But I want to meet them soon.”

“As if you didn’t know who they are already,” Ryder rolled his eyes.

“But I said I wanted to meet him, not that I didn’t know who he was,” she laughed.

“I hate you, you know that? The moment you get a girlfriend I’m not gonna let you live it down.”

“A girlfriend? In this economy? Not counting our job and having to tell her who I am, I don’t think so, no.”

“Those words will come to bite you in the ass and I can’t wait to see that happen.” Honeymaren was about to reply but her brother cut her. “Moving on, what are we doing this fine day in a park? Never took you for a fan of walking around open spaces.”

“I prefer the woods, yeah.” She stopped in her tracks and looked at Ryder. “Do you see that dog behind me? There’s a girl throwing a blue frisbee, do you see it?”

He narrowed his eyes looking over Honeymaren’s shoulder. “I see it. Do you want me to move it?”

“Exactly, I wanna have a talk with this girl.”

Ryder nodded and focused his eyes on the flying frisbee. He had to wait until the girl and her dog were looking towards them, and when she threw it, Ryder took his chance. Seconds later, the blue frisbee was hitting Honeymaren’s back.

She turned around, faking surprise, and found the girl’s dog at her back. She knelt to pet it.

“I am so sorry!”

A young girl approached the siblings. She had strawberry blond hair tied up in a single braid on her back, brown eyes, light freckles, and a nose that was a little too big for her face. She was muscular, standing taller than either sibling, but she approached them hunched over, her arms reaching for the dog, who she took in her arms before standing tall again.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated. “I swear I threw the frisbee in the other direction, but the wind must’ve carried it here.”

Honeymaren smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s all good, I can’t even fake it to hurt me so I could avoid work tomorrow.”

The other girl laughed, swiping a wild strand of hair back. “If it had hit your leg then maybe, yeah?”

“Alas, I wasn’t that lucky. I’m Rachel, and this is my brother Jason,” she introduced them.

The girl smiled. “A pleasure, my name is Kirsten, and this is Sven,” she raised the smiling dog.

Ryder pet it. “Sven, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a name before.”

“My great-grandfather was a reindeer herder, and Sven was his favourite among them all, that’s where it comes from,” she replied.

“What a fantastic idea! Rachel, now I want a dog; it would be great if we knew our family tree to find a suitable name,” Ryder mused.

Kirsten blinked, furrowing her brows for a second. “You’re orphans too?”

“Yeah, we never knew our parents, but we thankfully grew up together in the system,” said Honeymaren.

“Oh. I did know mine, but they died in a fire about ten years ago. My neighbour took care of me until I was able to live on my own.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Ryder. “But it’s good that you had people looking after you,” he smiled. 

“There are a surprising amount of those; the people we were housed with were good to us too,” Honeymaren added.

There was an awkward silence, and Kirsten took that opportunity to clear her throat.

“I won’t keep you two good people any longer though, I gotta go back to the uni, but it’s been great meeting you too,” she said.

“The pleasure was all ours,” replied Honeymaren. “See you around!”

They waved at each other, and Kirsten and her dog left in a light jog in the opposite direction.

“Tracker?” Murmured Honeymaren.

“On the dog’s collar. You?”

“The frisbee. But I also went ahead and cloned her phone.”

Ryder stretched out while yawning. “Can I now please go to sleep?”

Honeymaren chuckled. “Yeah, you can get back to your boyfriend; I have to update Yelana on the situation either way.”

***

The road to their main headquarters was filled with soft music and fresh air, as Honeymaren drove to the outskirts of town after leaving Ryder at home.

Parking on her reserved spot, she took the elevator introducing a special key that would take her down to the unlisted basement.

Officially, the NSC was a security firm for high profile clients, and although they did do that, they also did so much more.

The elevator opened and Honeymaren stepped into an open plan design: the central area was but a huge tatami with different weapons close by. In the middle, new recruits were practicing their hand-to-hand skills, and the sounds of bodies hitting the mat and grunts of effort brought a smile to Honeymaren’s face.

One of the furthest walls, its complete length, was a crystal room with targets on one end and long ranged weapons on the other, but the lights were off and the door closed.

Honeymaren snorted, how Broch loved to remind her of the time she wiped the floor with her in the archery test. Or the sniping one. The only one to manage to equal her in some shots had been Hua, with a powered-down Ryder close behind, and even their marks had been at least fifty three points behind the redhead’s.

But Honeymaren had got her revenge on the hand-to-hand trials, thus evening their marks. Other things had made her be the whole group’s superior, but the healthy rivalry they had had helped shape Honeymaren into the woman she was now.

She nodded at a couple of agents who were walking in her opposite direction and she headed for Yelana’s office, right at the back.

Her boss was reading some reports, but when Honeymaren knocked on the crystal door, she motioned the younger woman to come in and to close the door behind her.

“You killed three vampires yesterday?” Was the first thing the older woman said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Honeymaren took a seat in front of her, hands on her knees.

“Any issues?”

Honeymaren shook her head. “Two of them were clearly newly made and were no problem. My team took care of the leader.”

“There’s no information you could’ve extracted from them?”

“I’m afraid not, they were pretty low level. I believe they didn’t even know about the kidnaps; they seemed to be content enough to serve as extra protection for business transactions.”

Yelana rubbed her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I don’t like the recent spike in their activities. The main population might not know about vampires yet, but if the authorities don’t solve the kidnaps soon, we might have a stir on our hands.”

“It’s not our fault local police are useless.” Honeymaren crossed her arms. “Do you think maybe that’s what this vampire wants? Gain enough power and fear, and once you reveal vampires exist to the world, everyone will be terrified enough to do as they say.”

Yelana looked critically at Honeymaren. “Is that what you would do?”

Honeymaren took a deep breath, thinking it over. “We still don’t know why they’re kidnapping people, we haven’t even found a connection between them. They haven’t shown up as vampires, if turning them is what they are after, and everything has been quiet in their upper circles.”

Yelana tapped the folder in front of her. “Our informants tell us something big is brewing, but no one has the specifics. What happens when it explodes?”

“People die,” deadpanned Honeymaren.

“And it’s our job to protect them.”

The younger woman sighed, exasperated. “Elsa hasn’t been in contact with these people; the only thing she’s been dealing with is illegal imports and exports, but we haven’t intercepted any interaction with her brethren.” She blinked, realising something. “Shit. Elsa’s going to be their scapegoat.”

Yelana leaned forward, alert. “Are you sure?”

“It makes sense.” She rubbed her forehead. “We’ve been getting close to her because she’s one of the most prominent and richest vampires, but she’s barely had contact with other big names, and it’s not her initiating those. She’s akin to a hermit and close to the breaking point; pinning all this on her when it blows up won’t be difficult. Or it wouldn’t if we weren’t on the case.”

Yelana furrowed her brows. “You’re saying you’ll protect her?”

Those words sounded wrong in her mouth and even Honeymaren let out a disgusted grunt.

“Leverage. We can use that as leverage against her. We get the docs, we tell her what’s coming, but I’m not standing by her side when they come to get her.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Yelana counterpointed.

“Then we’ll ruin the other party’s plans of framing her and I’ll drive a dagger straight to her cold heart.”

“I trust you as if you were my own daughter, Honeymaren, but this thing we’re talking about requires you getting close to her, gain her trust. If that doesn’t work we don’t get the deeds, we don’t get her convicted, and we’ll be under fire from the public’s opinion. I’ll ask you again, are you sure you can do this?”

Honeymaren bit her lower lip, deep in thought. Then she looked up, a blazing look in her eyes. “I’ll make her trust me, and she’ll pay for what she’s done.”


End file.
